Tough Love
by Ski000Girl
Summary: James Sirius Potter is living up to his names, much to the distress of his father.


a/n I'm back...yeah yeah I know, who cares after how long it's been. Well, I have two weeks off before classes start again and I'm going to make the most of it. Enjoy

xxx

First it was the fork he had been holding, suspended half way to his mouth as he read the letter. Then it was the vase that had been her great grandmother's, presented to her as a wedding gift by her mother.

"He did what?" he bellowed

"Get out!" she stood up, rested her hands firmly on the table to hide the fact that they were visibly shaking. She hoped her voice wouldn't crack, "Come back when you've pulled yourself together."

He was so shocked that for a moment he just sat there. A trail of eggs dribbling down his front and his glasses slightly askew.

"You heard me. Before you break something that I can't repair."

Slightly hurt now, he stood up and without a word or a whimper, scurried out of the house.

Heart rate having slowed slightly now that the silence of the house enveloped her, she slowly sank back down into her chair. She closed her eyes, trying to erase the horrors she knew awaited her on that rolled up piece of parchment. That boy was going to put her in an early grave. Knowing she had no choice, she extended her arm and drew the letter towards her.

xxx

Never before had he been kicked out of his own house. It was like he was a small child again, banished to spend a decade in a cupboard under the stairs. The wind was howling and because he'd left in such a haste, he had not grabbed his cloak. Not knowing what else to do, he pictured the place in his mind and disappeared with a pop.

xxx

She leaned back in her chair and laughed. The letter which she had first believed to be short was actually quite the opposite. Instead it had just been charmed to scroll to the next paragraph as you read on. The first comment was how the last six years had been leading up to this letter and the last episode was the last straw. What else could you do but laugh, when as a parent you receive a seemingly never ending list of the travesties of your child rearing skills.

First it had been the toilet seat, which Myrtle had been oh to willing to give up. As long as it, 'ended up hanging around that mean girls neck like a necklace,' as the ghost had apparently suggested. No, it was never her son's own idea or fault as he had tried to say too many times to count. With two generations before him of masterful pranksters, there really was no hope for him to escape it. That had been in first year.

Second year was an absolute disaster. Marks had plummeted and the words, if he only applied himself were whispered by many.

By third year though things took a turn for the better, or the worse. All of a sudden E's and O's were appearing on paper's and exams. But the relief was short lived, because fourth year the truth behind the magic was revealed. The summer after second year he had realized that he was allowed a wand at school, unlike at home and therefore his prank possibilities were endless, if only he mastered the charm or potion. Things had gone down hill after that, but somehow his popularity had soared.

Now, two weeks shy of Christmas Break, her son, James Sirius Potter was making his namesakes proud.

xxx

"Why are you covered in food?" his friend demanded.

"And where's your cloak, it's going to start snowing out any minute now?" a voice called out from the doorway to the kitchen.

"James," he grumbled, as he flopped down onto the couch.

His two friends shared an amused look and then came and sat down on either side of him. If history had anything to show, this was going to be an entertaining story.

"Harry, please lighten up. Laugh a little," Ron chuckled.

"That's easy for you to say. But no, I can't laugh. My son was just caught switching one of the professor's night cap's with a slightly stronger concoction that will ensure that everything they say will be transformed into a carol throughout the holiday season."

A smile crept across Ron's face and Hermione tried her hardest to look shocked.

"And, he was caught in the forbidden forest."

Hermione rolled her eyes. If only Harry had had that sense of rule abiding when they were students themselves.

"And, they found him sitting on the roof of the Astronomy Tower. How dangerous is that? That boy is going to wish he had fallen when I get a hold of him."

"Hey mate," Ron laid a hand on his shoulder, "cool it."

xxx

The last thing on the list was what had grabbed her attention. She had almost missed it, but Harry had obviously not.

_It is with regret that we inform you that even after the three previous incidents listed above (which you should be informed occurred all within the span of one afternoon), and adequate detention time for each, your son still found the time on the eve of an exam, to sneak into the girl's dormitory of another house and shall we say partake in scantily clothed extra curricular activities._

She knew what the letter was implying and it was not what Harry thought, but she was never going to tell him. He would only enquire about how she knew the details of a Hogwart's tradition he had never heard of.

It hadn't been to long ago that she herself had attended the annual, pre-holiday strip tease in the Ravenclaw, sixth year girls dormitory. All sixth years and up who were believed to be interested in an event such as it was had been invited. She had only been 15 at the time, but still managed to get in and be a key member of the entertainment for the evening. She really couldn't remember the details and she partially thanked her memory lapse for sparing her the embarrassment. That memory was better of buried, far away underneath the haze of a firewhiskey stupor.

Harry had never experienced the excitement of being a normal teenager. Sex and alcohol were a huge part of Hogwarts and every former student turned parent knew what they were sending their kid into. Except for Harry. He had been oblivious to the normal boarding school life. Saving the world managed to eat up all of his time, and even when he managed to snag a girl, Ginny chuckled out loud at her husband's lack of experience, she was still sobbing over her dead boyfriend.

For Ginny though, years of waiting for something that was never going to come and being excluded by Harry, Ron and Hermione from their adventures, had left her horny for some rebellion. She had found that release from all the stresses by slamming the door of a broom cupboard and snogging the first available dude she could find. Needless to say, she could understand where her son was coming from on the sexual exploration front.

xxx

"Harry, please listen," Hermione said calmly, "forget about it."

"How can I forget about it? He's out after curfew, goes places he's not supposed to and..I'm just going to march right up to that school and drag him on home."

"Shut up mate, let her talk," Ron stepped in and Harry fell silent.

"I know you're having a hard time with this, but hear me out. You were eleven, you'd had your wand for all of two months and you took on a troll and won. That was just the beginning. Harry if your parents had have been alive, they would have had you out of Hogwarts before you could say Bertie Bott's, and Ron, if your Mom hadn't lived through the twins already it would be safe to say it would have been more than Howler's she would have be sending you after you flew a car into a tree. If only my parents had have known what we were up to. They thought they were sending me off to a nice cushy private school where we learned to make things fly. If they had only known.

All I'm saying is look at where we were. We were adults when we should have still been children. What was put on your plate to deal with was something fully trained wizards never have to do. Everything we did we could have died. There wasn't a year that didn't go by where the hospital wing wasn't infiltrated by one of us, and not because of a prank gone wrong. Prank's Harry, they are what put a smile on people's face during tough times. If I recall correctly you handed over a nice bag of gold to the twins to finance that goal. The swamp, the fireworks, it all lifted us up that little bit when Umbridge tried to stamp us down."

Harry sunk further into the cushions the more she talked.

"They grow up Harry, and Merlin knows I tried to stop it, but they do. Besides you're missing the point if you don't want them to grow up. As long as they keep pranking, they'll always be a kid at heart. Don't take it away from James because he pulled a few pranks. He takes after your father I've been told, and Sirius. Top of their class, popular, but still humble. Aren't those traits you want in your son?"

She managed to obtain a small nod from Harry. She knew he knew all this stuff, hell he'd told it to her the time she had discovered a bruise on the side of Rose's neck that strangely resembled a hickey which she had passed off as the remnants of a beater's bat injury.

"They grow up Harry. They've been kids but they want to be adults now."

"But they still are kids. It's better for them, they don't know what they're missing. I'd give anything to be a carefree kids like them. I just want it to last as long as it can," Harry protested.

"Harry they're smart kids. They'll learn their lessons, the hard way, the easy way, whatever way works for them. You can't protect them. As soon as they step on the train when they are eleven they're gone. I was seventeen and I erased my parents memory and sent them to Australia. I made them forget they had a daughter, forget everything about themselves. I was seventeen and protecting my parents. Harry, you really don't need to protect them anymore. Let them go, they'll come back and just be thankful that they have the opportunity to sneak around the castle late at night because they have a girlfriend, rather than because a murderer is on the loose. Let them live the life that those for two generations have lived in fear of. You gave them their freedom, now let them use it"

xxx

Ginny rolled up the letter and placed it in the box she had started years ago. It was now almost overflowing with rolls of parchment. Each one citing a different offence that had been undertaken by her eldest son. Sometimes when the house was empty and she was lonely she'd unroll them and drift back in time. Fred and George, her son was so much like them. How good a pair they had made, and James and Sirius before them. Sometimes it was all she could do to keep the tears from flowing for her brother who would never prank again. It was only fitting her eldest shared names with two people Hogwarts two generations later still refused to forget. Albus though, he fit his name too. Quite, intelligent and more sensitive, just like his mother's headmaster.

Harry didn't see it though. He could never get past that permanent need to protect people, even if it ended up doing more harm than good. Just as his good bye to her at the end of her fifth year had done. He was never able to understand why she wanted to come with him on his journeys, she loved him too much to sit at home and wait for word to spread that he was gone, forever. But alas that was what she did. With only the company of a steady stream of letter's home from Professor's and Head's of Houses about James' escapades.

As Harry went off time and time again with Hermione and Ron. Even after twenty years of marriage, she still sometimes felt like an outsider in that friendship. All the things they had shared, without her could never be replaced. Sometimes when they were meet up for dinner, she would feel like a fourth wheel in a world of inside jokes. It wasn't all fun and games being married to Harry Potter, but she still would not give him up for anything.

xxx

The vase was back at the centre of the table, the dishes were put away and the letter was nowhere to be seen. As was his wife. With a folder of work sitting on his desk that he knew he had to complete, he headed into his office. Maybe Hermione had been right. Who was he kidding, she was always right. Man, he didn't know how Ron did it sometimes.

As he stared around his empty office he suddenly had the desire to do something he hadn't done in years. He pulled out his wand and pointed it at his bottom desk drawer. With a soft click it sprang open. It had been years. James' first day at Hogwarts since he had last looked at it. Ginny had yelled at him and threatened to hex him if he didn't stop staring at that worn piece of parchment. Something about he couldn't always be there to protect them. He had argued, saying with the map he could. That wasn't enough though for his hot headed wife. She had thrown it back in his open drawer and made him swear to not look at it again.

It surprised even himself, but he hadn't, not once. Until now, but where had it gone? He sprung out of his chair and flung open another set of drawers, right where his Invisibility Cloak was supposed to be stored, but it was gone too.

So that was how he was doing it. Sneaky little fellow, but how had he managed to obtain those two items? Unless...the only person who knew about them, where they were hidden and how to unlock their safe havens...GINNY!"

xxx

a/n so it's been awhile, but I have two free weeks coming up and I plan to spend mind numbing amounts of time catching up on fanfiction. This story was sort of a spur of the moment thing. I got the idea reading a couple of fanfics this morning in between studying for my exams and well I couldn't resist. It's not wonderfully written but as soon as I got the urge to write something for ff I couldn't stop. Now this was just a warm up for some of my longer and believed to be abandoned stories by my reader's. They will get updated. I promise and hopefully this short fic gets me back into the swing of writing. I'm a little rusty, but I had forgotten how much I loved writing about Harry Potter. Please review and thanks in advance.


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